Kolodney has been CIO for Washington since 1995, with a brief excursion
into the private sector in 1999.

Under his leadership, the Washington Department of Information Services
(www.wa.gov/dis) received much acclaim, including
the National Association of State Information Resource Executives' Outstanding
Achievement in the Field of Information Technology award and the Progress
and Freedom Foundation's Digital State award for 2000.

Kolodney's department also received civic.com's State and Local 50 award
in 2000 for developing Access Washington (access.wa.gov),
the state's portal.

Craig Lewis, vice president of marketing and market solutions for AMS'
State and Local Solutions Group, on Tuesday praised the addition of Kolodney.

"If you're familiar with what we do, with our history, then you'll see
this addition is about what we do, which is ultimately [bringing] the legitimate
delivery of IT systems to citizens," Lewis said. "It makes great sense for
Steve to complement us with his practical experience in the public IT sector."

Last summer, Washington became the first state to join AMS' buysense,
an online marketplace that enables employees to search electronic catalogs
and place orders for goods and services.

Kolodney briefly left his state post in 1999 to pursue a private-sector
career in Sacramento, Calif., and to be with family. But he was back at
the state in a matter of months, saying he missed working in state government.

Kolodney, who could not be reached for this report, is the second prominent
figure in e-government to join AMS in about a week. John LaFaver, the former
director of the Treasury Department's International Tax Advisory System
and the former head of the Kansas Department of Revenue, is becoming vice
president of AMS' State and Local Solutions Group.

Virginia-based AMS is a $1.28 billion firm that works with 43 state
governments and most federal agencies. Its 2000 public-sector revenues were
quoted as $680.8 million.

The GAO director of information technology issues is leaving government after 16 years. On his way out the door, Dave Powner details how far govtech has come in the past two decades and flags the most critical issues he sees facing federal IT leaders.